Missouri authorities have recovered human remains investigators believe belong to a man who has been missing for a decade, after a local YouTuber led them to the area.
Almost 10 years to the day after Army veteran Donnie Erwin disappeared in December 2013, freelance videographer and drone pilot James Hinkle located at the bottom of a pond in Camden County a car whose license plate matched that of the missing man’s Hyundai Elantra.
Detectives brought divers and cadaver dogs to search the area until, on Sunday morning, they managed to recover human remains along with an artificial hip that appeared to be Erwin’s.
“While a forensic pathologist will have to examine the remains to determine for certain if they are indeed those of Mr. Erwin, investigators are confident the hip and remains belong to him,” the Camden County Sheriff’s Office wrote in a news release.
Hinkle runs the YouTube channel Echo Divers, self-described as a scuba diving search and recovery team that helps law enforcement and family members work on missing persons cases. He said his interest in these cases began in 1991, when a young woman was abducted from his hometown.
“I’m now at a point in my life that I can volunteer to help others search for their missing loved ones,” Hinkle said. “As the father of a U.S. Marine, I strongly believe that we should serve those who served for us. When I found out that Donnie was a veteran and lived an hour and a half from my home in Clinton, Missouri, I knew I could help with the search.”
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He uploaded several videos this year documenting his search for the missing veteran. In April, he shared on YouTube that he used sonar to confirm there was a small car submerged in a Camden County pond.
Hinkle told NBC News he had been flying a drone to retrace the route Erwin likely traveled the morning he went missing, checking any deep valleys, ravines or small ponds in which a car may be hiding. He had reached the second-to-last location in his search plan when he spotted the vehicle, at which point he contacted the land owner and made arrangements to search the property.
In another short YouTube video uploaded earlier this month, Hinkle filmed himself kayaking to the middle of the pond where the car appeared to be.
“It is confirmed. That is the vehicle,” a diver appears to say in the video after emerging from the water.
Erwin’s sister, Yvonne Erwin-Bowen, posted in the Facebook group FIND DONNIE ERWIN that the sheriff’s office notified her on Christmas morning about having recovered Erwin’s potential remains.
“It’s with joy and yet sadness that today, I received the call I’ve been waiting for for almost 10 years,” Erwin-Bowen wrote Monday, adding, “God’s will is done. And I am so very grateful to him for bringing my brother home.”
